A Brief History of Loans
...... from the Italian moneylenders of the Middle Ages that we get both the English words bank and bankrupt that we use today.
Italian moneylenders would set up benches in the local marketplace (with the word for bench being banca, from which we eventually derived the word bank). The moneylenders would charge interest on their loans at a rate that they set, and would sometimes be quite successful and become very wealthy.
As an interesting sidenote to the history of loans, if the moneylenders were not successful, though, they would break up their benches and pursue other venues. The Latin expression for breaking up a bench in this way was banca rupta, which eventually became the English word bankrupt (which carries a much steeper connotation than simply a broken bench.)
Modern banking loans
Of course, the history of loans has progressed quite a bit since the days of the Middle Ages moneylender. Interest rates are much more controlled, loan terms have a much higher degree of fairness to them, and the banks of our era aren't out to simply get as much money out of borrowers as they can.
The modern banks, finance companies, and online lenders that provide loans to the public and private sectors provide a great service to the world economy, and are regulated by both local and governmental policy so as to make sure that nothing interferes with that service.
However, if not for some of the oppression and misdealing that was present throughout the history of lending then the fairness and opportunity that exists in banking today might not be possible even the oppression that resulted from indentured servitude in the past helped to establish modern banking by showing what factors needed to be eliminated so as best to benefit both lender and borrower.
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